


Curse Words

by dotfic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-19
Updated: 2006-11-19
Packaged: 2017-10-12 18:51:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/127954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotfic/pseuds/dotfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam doesn't get drunk. He worries about words said, and gets himself and Dean into a spot of trouble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Curse Words

**Author's Note:**

> Timeframe: a few days after "Crossroad Blues"  
> Disclaimer: They belong to Eric "whaddya mean, SOON?!" Kripke and the CW.
> 
> Thank you to embroiderama for the speedy beta read.

"Go to hell."

Sam said it soft, so Dean was pretty sure the words weren't directed at him. It was like he was trying out how it felt to say them. But with Sam, well, sometimes you never knew.

"Excuse me?"

"That's what I shouted at him." Sam stared down into the mouth of his beer bottle. "More than once, if I recall."

Dean lowered the folded-up newspaper. The bar smelled of beer and fried food. Speakers throbbed loudly with something godawful from the 90s trying to pass itself off as hard rock. "How do you even remember one particular thing you might have shouted at him a few times? You two yelled at each other at lot."

The grin twisting Sam's mouth had no joy in it. Sam put the beer bottle down and ran his fingers along the grooves of the pentagram someone had carved into the table. The marks were worn so smooth it had to have been cut into the wood years ago. The pentagram was one of the more polite things carved there. "It's kind of hard not to remember."

"If you're going to give yourself a guilt trip over something like that..."

"I'm not." Sam's eyes returned to the laptop screen. "I know it's stupid--it was a long time ago and kids yell things at their parents when they're angry." He tapped a few keys. "Only in this family would something like that turn out to be so fucking...literal."

"Dude." Dean turned back to the obits because it was easier to look at the neat columns of text than see the bitterness on his brother's face. Or to think about what Sam was saying. "I never should have let you have that third beer."

"Seems to me you don't really have a say in that." There was no anger in Sam's response, no true challenge. He sounded tired.

"Uh, last I checked, I do, because I'm the big brother, you're the little brother, and it's my job to watch after you and keep you from getting piss drunk until you fall over or throw up."

"I'm not drunk, Dean."

"Riiiight."

"It's just that Dad..."

"Stop. Stop, okay? Just. Stop."

They fell silent, let the loud conversation of the bar curl around them.

"I'll be right back." Sam's chair scraped as he got up.

Dean was sick and tired of reading about death. He slapped the newspaper down and glanced around, wondering if the place had a dart board, or maybe another room with a pool table. He watched as Sam wound his way through the bar towards the bathrooms, looming over everyone, his arms up to avoid jostling people.

There was a guy and a girl standing by the payphone at the back. Their body language made Dean's radar blip--not his ghost or monster radar, but his trouble with a capital "T" radar. The girl was short and pleasantly buxom, with thick brown hair cascading over her shoulders. The guy was tall and broad as a truck grille, face flushed, his voice loud as he grabbed the girl's arm. She glared at him angrily and tried to twist away. He shoved her against the wall.

Dean was up and out of his seat immediately. Sam reached them first, said something to the guy, who was about a head shorter than Sam, but that didn't matter since the guy seemed to have muscles on muscles.

There was no way this could end well.

The guy wasn't backing down, hadn't let go of the girl. Dean hurried towards them but crap, he was too late. He'd seen the flash of anger in his brother's face.

Sam grabbed the guy's arm and tried to pull him away from the girl. The guy let go of the her and grabbed Sam instead.

"Hey!" Dean shouted, and started to run.

Sam feigned a move to throw his opponent off, then got in a punch to the guy's stomach using his good hand. The guy stepped back, gasping, but didn't bend. Instead he grabbed Sam's cast arm and slammed it against the pay phone.

The guy's other fist descended, and met Dean's palm.

"You are so going to regret that," Dean said.

The place had gone very quiet.

The girl retreated to the bar, her eyes wide, her cell phone to her ear. She wasn't speaking, her mouth half-open.

"Take it outside, fellas," said the bartender, but the words were lost as Dean twisted the guy's arm around and up behind his back, sharp and vicious. Cursing, the guy broke free and lunged at Dean, who side-stepped.

But he pivoted quicker than Dean expected given his lumbering mannerisms. Also, he evidently wasn't as drunk as he'd seemed.

As the guy's fist slammed into his jaw, Dean made a mental note not to be so dim about that kind of thing next time. It was a punch Dean should have been able to avoid, only the pay phone was at one shoulder, and one of those stupid promotional postcard racks jutted out of the wall at the other. No room to maneuver.

Dean blinked. Before his head could clear, the guy grabbed him by his leather jacket and lifted him up. The jolt crashed through his whole body when the guy slammed him onto an unoccupied table, knocking the breath out of him.

He heard a roar of rage, and realized it was Sam, who body-tackled the guy to the floor.

Wondering if maybe Sam really was drunk, getting them into this mess, Dean rolled off the table, then knelt and grabbed the guy's angrily flailing arm. He pinned it to the floor, holding it there with his knee, while Sam pinned the other arm.

There were no signs of possession, but the way the guy was bucking and cursing, the strength of his struggles, made Dean wonder.

"I'm calling the police," the bartender called out, almost casually.

"We're leaving," Dean shouted back in the same laconic tone. "Just give us a second for the Hulk here to calm down."

That showed no signs of happening anytime soon.

With a fleeting thought about why no one in the whole bar had bothered to come over and help them--typical--Dean sighed and punched the guy hard enough to knock him out. It was either that or they'd be on the floor wrestling with this lunatic all night. Or they'd all end up in the drunk tank.

He got up off the guy, hauled Sam to his feet, and dragged him over to their table. Dean grabbed their laptop, journal, and papers. The girl watched them, face stricken and pale, as they pushed out of the door into the night.

The music flowed out loudly in their wake. Then the door shut behind them, muffling the sound. The bar had a big parking lot, right next to a pathetic patch of woods. Down the road to their left the bright lights of a shopping center blazed into the night. Cars rushed by on the highway.

Dean inhaled the cool air and ran the tip of his tongue over the corner of his mouth, tasting blood. He turned to check on Sam, who was still breathing heavily, face bright with adrenaline.

"Your hand okay?" Dean asked.

Sam gently rubbed his good hand over his cast, wriggling his thumb. "I think so. It didn't hit the phone that hard."

Their shoes crunched on the gravel. The Impala was shining black, parked between a beat-up, scarred white van and a practical mud-spattered Honda about ten years old.

"Are you hurt?" Sam asked.

"I'm fine."

A dog barked far off, urgent and furious, probably jumping at shadows. There was woodsmoke on the wind, mixed with exhaust fumes from all the cars at the shopping center.

"Hey, Dean?" Sam said it soft, the way he'd said _go to hell_.

They stopped, facing each in front of the expanse of the Impala's hood.

"Yeah?"

Sam pulled the laptop and journal from Dean's hands and put them on the hood. "I think I'll take you up on your earlier offer now."

His mind barely had time to turn that over, to remember what offer Sam was talking about, before Sam's fist slammed hard into his cheek. It was hard enough to make Dean stagger, hard enough he would have gone down except he slumped against the hood of the car instead.

"Sam, what the h--fuck."

They'd been doing that for days, ever since Mississippi, and they'd be doing that for a long time: changing that word to something else at the last minute. Even in their world, it had once been a relatively meaningless curse, not much different than any of the others.

Not anymore.

Dean sat on the hood and rubbed his face, trying not to look at Sam. The Impala dipped as Sam sat on the hood next to him and propped one foot up on the fender. He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket.

"That's for even considering it," Sam said, voice low and fierce, the shake almost inaudible.

They sat, shoulders touching. More cars shushed by on the highway. The lights of the shopping center swam in Dean's vision.

After a while, Dean pushed himself off the hood and walked around to the driver's side while Sam gathered up the laptop, journal, and papers and walked around to the passenger side.

They drove on.

~end


End file.
